Electronic Arts Inc. executives stand with Star Wars characters to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ Market Site in New York, December 20, 2011. EA was celebrating Tuesday's launch of EA's "Star Wars: The Old Republic" game and the re-listing of Electronic Arts Inc. on the NASDAQ under the new symbol "EA". Pictured are (2nd R-L) NASDAQ Executive Vice President of the Corporate Client Group Bruce Aust, President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau, EA Senior Vice President Ray Muzyka and EA Vice President Greg Zeschuk. (MIKE SEGAR/Mike Segar/Reuters)

Electronic Arts Inc. executives stand with Star Wars characters to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ Market Site in New York, December 20, 2011. EA was celebrating Tuesday's launch of EA's "Star Wars: The Old Republic" game and the re-listing of Electronic Arts Inc. on the NASDAQ under the new symbol "EA". Pictured are (2nd R-L) NASDAQ Executive Vice President of the Corporate Client Group Bruce Aust, President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau, EA Senior Vice President Ray Muzyka and EA Vice President Greg Zeschuk.(MIKE SEGAR/Mike Segar/Reuters)

Gaming

“A lot is at stake for EA,” said Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst Colin Sebastian, who estimates the company spent more than $300-million to make “the Old Republic.”

Other analysts think between $100-million and $300-million was spent on the game. EA has not divulged the cost.

“This caps years of development and hundred of millions of dollars. It’s a very important part of their pipeline for the next several years. If it’s a failure, it’s a huge loss for EA,” Mr. Sebastian said.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is different from other recent high-profile releases by EA such as
Battlefield 3 in that it is a massive multiplayer player online game, or MMO, that allows thousands of people to play simultaneously for a monthly subscription fee as opposed to a one-time purchase.

Gamers will pay $60 up front and then about $15 a month for
Star Wars: The Old Republic, reflecting a move by the video game industry to evolve into a cable television business model. Companies like EA are trying to create a steady and predictable revenue stream from subscribers as opposed to a current Hollywood-like business model where games can be one-time blockbuster events.

Despite the film franchise’s commercial pedigree, however, the game is no slam dunk. The success of MMO games is hard to predict and early reviews by critics may not gauge its success since it can take months to test the hundreds of hours of playing time.

EA has made no secret that it is using the game, developed in Austin by Edmonton-based BioWare Studio over three and a half years, to go after
World of Warcraft, the title made by its biggest competitor, Activision Blizzard.

World of Warcraft represents the genre’s gold standard, in some years generating $1-billion in revenue by itself. To help compete, EA hired more than 1,000 voice actors for
Star Wars: The Old Republic, which broke an industry record.

“There hasn’t been a big MMO release in many years, not since
World of Warcraft, that is this ambitious in scope and broadly appealing,” said Frank Gibeau, president of EA labels.

Mr. Gibeau said that monthly subscriptions giving players constant access to new content could make the game a “10-year business.” The company has previously said it needs 500,000 subscribers to break even on the game and that more than 1 million subscribers would make it “a very profitable business.”

According to Arvind Bhatia, a Sterne Agee analyst, EA should have no trouble reaching that milestone. Bhatia expects the game to sell 3 million copies at the start and sign up 1.5 million subscribers by the end of 2012.

Mr. Bhatia, underscoring how much EA has riding on this one game, added that the company’s annual earnings next year could take a 15 to 20 cent hit if the game is a bust.

“If it’s a flop, then it’s bad for the sentiment of the stock and from an earnings standpoint,” Mr. Bhatia said.

It’s not impossible
Old Republic will fail to catch: BioWare is not the first developer to bring the “Star Wars” franchise into the multiplayer gaming world. Sony Online Entertainment launched the highly anticipated Star Wars Galaxies in 2003, but the game failed to live up to expectations and was ultimately cancelled, with the servers going offline for good last week.

EA’s Mr. Gibeau downplayed the idea that it could suffer a major loss if the game, which was developed by more than 400 full-time EA employees, does not catch on.

“In terms of scale, scope and expense, this doesn’t make or break the company. This is just one initiative and we have many other bets we are making,” Mr. Gibeau said.

Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick has questioned whether EA would make money off the game since it has to pay Lucas Arts, the owner of the Star Wars license, for rights.

“Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars,” Mr. Kotick told Reuters in November. “We’ve been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don’t really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts.”

EA has since brushed off Mr. Kotick’s claim, with Mr. Gibeau saying EA is used to making money off major licensing deals, from its soccer game,
FIFA to its football title
Madden NFL.

“I wasn’t aware Bobby had access to our deal and knows what we are going to get,” said EA’s Mr. Gibeau. “That’s not the case here. This is a very good business for us.

The game takes place thousands of years before the popular “Star Wars” films. The Galactic Republic has forged a tenuous peace with the despotic Sith Empire, and the Republic's Jedi knights are seeking to rebuild after being decimated their enemies in the last war. Peace does not make for an engaging video game plot, however, and soon the universe is again swept up in a conflict between the two sides.

Players can choose to either serve the Republic or Empire as their characters embark on a journey that will take them to several far-flung planets, including “Star Wars” favourites such as icy Hoth or arid Tatooine. Along the way players will take on a multitude of quests to progress their individual stories, either alone or with a group of friends. Players have a choice in what kind of characters they want to be, from an honourable Jedi knight wielding an iconic lightsaber to a bounty hunter for hire.

With interactive dialogues storylines influenced by players' decisions, the focus on the game's story is immediately apparent. BioWare has taken the role-playing elements that made their games Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins popular and integrated them into a video game genre where narrative often takes a back seat.

“The real crux, the defining difference from other games, is actually a sense of choice,” says Greg Zeschuk, co-founder and vice-president of BioWare. “A typical MMO game will say ‘get five of these,' and you'll go get five of them and the guy goes ‘here's your prize.’ And that's it. In our game there's usually a context, there's some story set up for it.”

While gamers have been salivating for years over leaked details of the game, investors like Dan Niles, chief investment officer of the AlphaOne Capital Partners hedge fund, have also been paying close attention, but for a different reason. Mr. Niles said if the game does well, he may buy EA shares.

At Monday’s close of $19.84 per share, EA shares have gained 21 per cent for the year. However, the company’s shares have also shed 19 percent since its last earnings report on October 27.

“I am looking forward to the game coming out to see if it could be interesting for the stock,” Niles said.

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